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Driving the Mission Home
The Calvert Hall Mission Drive supports our fellow Lasallian school in Naka, Nigeria.
Imagine this, you wake up early in the morning and get ready to go to school. In the morning, you go to an assembly, you hear the prayer and announcements and your teachers take attendance. You have 40 minute classes until 2:00 with 2 breaks during the day. From 4 to 6, you do all the activities you’re involved in. Sound like a typical day? The day I just described takes place in Naka, Nigeria, more than 5,000 miles away from Calvert Hall. Mount La Salle is the only Catholic School in Naka, but can only host 591 students... in a population of 250,000, this number doesn’t seem that great. So the question is raised, “How do we help Mt. LaSalle grow and maintain this population of students so that more people have a LaSallian experience?” With funds from the Mission Drive, we help make this lifestyle possible and prosperous for students.
Mt. La Salle charges about 20%-50% of what other Catholic schools of equal status charge ($66 per year, $266 if boarding), but even at that rate, it is difficult for families to pay for their children’s education. 60% of students are from peasant farmer families, 20% are from lower class merchant families, and the other 20% are children of wage earners. 98% of these families are living on less than two dollars per day. On top of all of these financial issues, a number of students’ parents were killed in an HIV epidemic. Obviously with these blockades in place, it is amazing that Mt. La Salle is able to provide their students with educational facilities and tools. In the local community, the school is able to generate enough money to cover books, but not tuition fees. The Mission Drive at Calvert Hall greatly aids in the financial support of Mt. La Salle students.
Along with financial support, our Mission Drive money helps aid the longevity and self-sustenance of the school. For example, the school’s main water source, an onsite water treatment plant, is in need of repair as its metallic reservoir has started to rust. Donation to the Mission Drive will aid in this necessity on Mt. La Salle’s campus. The learning facilities such as the male dormitory, science lab, and library have grown worn-out due to age. With the donations from the Mission Drive, Mt. La Salle will be able to renovate these dilapidated structures, thus aiding the resilience of the school. The self-sufficiency of the school is also aided in its bakery. The bakery was founded in order to aid in the confectionary needs of the students, but with the help of Mission Drive donations, could be expanded to match the demand of the entire town, being used both as a source of sustenance for students as well as a source of income for the school.
Finally, the Mission Drive money is being used to protect the students at Mt. La Salle. Nigeria is on the Tier 2 Watch List of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking In Persons, an organization run under the State Department, meaning that Nigeria does not meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking. In 2017, it was reported that children as young as 12 years old, about the age of a Mt. La Salle student, were used as support roles in the Nigerian Security Forces (NSF). It was also reported that children had been detained by the NSF for potential forced recruitment to the terrorist organization, Boko Haram. A multitude of non-governmental self-defense militias also recruited and used children. Even government officials at the federal and state level were involved in widespread sexual exploitation of women and girls displaced by terrorist activity in exchange for enough money to buy food. Even amongst all this strife, the Nigerian government only convicted two of a multitude of known traffickers, and reduced the budget for the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Person and Other Related Matters, thus reducing the budget of victim services. With this extensive proliferation of trafficking in Nigeria, it is necessary for children to be informed of dangers, especially children in vulnerable positions like those that attend Mt. La Salle. As such, a portion of the Mission Drive money is dedicated to the inception of a Human Trafficking education program in Mt. La Salle’s curriculum. Such a program is non-existent in the school and would serve to benefit students by ensuring that they are knowledgeable of the dangers traffickers pose and how to avoid trafficking situations.
Many students believe that Mt. La Salle is not similar to Calvert Hall, feel no commitment to the school, and don’t care about the Mission Drive. In reality, the students attending Mt. La Salle are very similar: around 40% of Calvert Hall students receive need based aid and Calvert Hall regularly allocates budget to renovation and maintenance. Calvert Hall has been able to weather these challenges through the experience and support base we have gained over our 173 years in operation. In aiding Mt. La Salle through the Mission Drive, we are helping them establish a similar stable base, thus allowing them to help students realize their full potential.
